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P Levêque

Publications and source records attributed to P Levêque.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Assessment of [18F]fluoroethylflumazenil metabolites using high-performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry.

A simple procedure using HPLC and tandem mass spectrometry has been developed for the determination of fluoroethylflumazenil metabolites. Samples were precipitated with acetonitrile, evaporated to dryness followed by reconstitution with methanol. As mobile phase, 50 mM ammonium formate-methanol (58:42, v/v) was used. The method is valid both for cold and radiolabelled metabolites. Various cold metabolites (hydroxylated and/or dealkylated) were identified in rat and human microsome preparations. Radiolabelled metabolites arise from two or more transformations including hydroxylation. The methodology developed can be applied for further characterisation of metabolites, and for the determination of non metabolised [18F]fluoroethylflumazenil in routine clinical analysis.

Animals↗

Biodistribution, binding specificity and metabolism of [18F]fluoroethylflumazenil in rodents.

Pre-clinical studies were carried out in order to characterize in rodents the biodistribution, the binding specificity and the metabolism of [18F]Fluoroethylflumazenil ([18F]FEF), a potential candidate for in vivo imaging of the benzodiazepine receptors. In vivo competition with flumazenil indicates that [18F]FEF binds specifically to the benzodiazepine receptor in the brain. The accumulation of [18F]FEF was significantly lower than using [3H]Flumazenil. The rather low accumulation in the brain is due to a rapid metabolism of [18F]FEF in hydrophylic metabolites which cannot cross the blood brain barrier, and are rapidly eliminated in the urine. Inhibition of the metabolism by acetaminophen (chemically induced hepatitis) led to a significant increase of the radioactivity found in the circulating blood and in the brain, while these results were not observed using classical inhibitors of the cytochrome CYP450, cimetidine and ketoconazole.

Animals↗

[11C]flumazenil metabolite measurement in plasma is not necessary for accurate brain benzodiazepine receptor quantification.

In this work, a mathematical correction for metabolites has been validated which estimates the relative amount of [11C]flumazenil ([11C]FMZ) in the total plasma curve from the tissue kinetic data without the need for direct metabolite measurement in blood plasma samples. Kinetic data were obtained using a 90-min three-injection protocol on five normal volunteers. First, the relative amount of [11C]FMZ in plasma was modelled by a two-parameter exponential function. The parameters were estimated either directly by fitting this model to the blood plasma metabolite measurements, or indirectly from the simultaneous fitting of tissue time activity curves from several brain regions with a non-linear FMZ kinetic model. Second, the direct and indirect metabolite corrections were fixed and the FMZ compartmental parameters were determined on a regional basis in the brain. The validation was performed by comparing the regional values of benzodiazepine receptor density Bmax and equilibrium dissociation constant Kd obtained with the direct metabolite correction with those values obtained with the indirect correction. For Bmax, the correlation coefficient r2 was above 0.97 for all subjects and the slope values of the linear regression were within the interval [0.97, 1.2]. For Kd, r2 was above 0.96, and the slope values of the linear regression were within the interval [0.99, 1.1]. Simulation studies were performed in order to evaluate whether this metabolite correction method could be used in a clinical protocol where only a single [11C]FMZ injection and a linear compartmental model are used. The resulting [11C]FMZ distribution volume estimates were found to be linearly correlated with the true values, with r2=1.0 and a slope value of 1.1. The mathematical metabolite correction proved to be a feasible and reliable method to estimate the relative amount of [11C]FMZ in plasma and the compartmental model parameters for three-injection protocols. Although validation with real data is necessary, simulation results suggest that our analysis method may also be applied to single-injection protocols.

Adult↗